I visited a
workshop at Hut &
Stiel at beginning
of October. They grow oyster mushrooms on coffee grounds in the damp and dark
cellars of (very) old Viennese apartment buildings. I think that the Idea to
grow mushrooms on a waste product is genius by its own, but those two gentleman
also built up a small successful enterprise which delivers it products to
famous restaurants.

At the
workshop they shared their knowledge and as theory is so very bone-dry we all
prepared our own bags full of coffee ground and mushroom mycelium to let them
grow and hopefully harvest the mushrooms after a few weeks.

My cellar
was too cold so I placed the bag in my shower (damp and warm) After 5 weeks I
could feel little pumps under the foil - the first mushrooms. We learned that
the mycelium likes some kind of panic (cold shock) in order to develop the
fruiting body faster – so I placed the bag outside for the Halloween night…

And it worked just beautifully - two days after the first baby mushrooms where there.

It was too cold outside, so the mushroom grow inside the house as an alternative. It is not the best solution as the mature mushroom will emit spurs which are not the most healthiest thing. But this varitety has very few spurs and to inhale them once in a while is no hazard either.

After
another week the oyster mushroom was ready to be harvested. In the room where I
grow the fruit body it was too dry (needs damp and bright) so the
mycelium was parched completely. Normally it would deliver two further but
smaller harvests. I placed the bag outside and going to spread the mycelium under
the blueberry bushes next spring - perhaps next year there will grow another
mushroom.

But that was not all - we also received a small pot with just a small amount of mushroom mycelium to feed it with our own coffee ground. This pot is now full and I wait until the mycel grows through the coffee.